Today I'm having a sewing day, trying to make the most of my vacation. During the move this summer, I took some time to organize my fabric and sewing supplies and discovered several unfinished projects, some of which I'd forgotten I had.

Does anyone else have a drawer or basket or box or chest full of unfinished projects like these?

This is the St. Patrick's Day quilt I started last July (that is, July of 2008)! I would love to get it together before March.

I can't even remember when I started this 9 patch quilt. I remember that I did it to use up a bunch of extra blocks I had, thus the random pattern pairings. :)

You can't see it, but underneath the 9 patch is a pile of pillowcases that Mom cut out for me after my second knee surgery in October. That's what I'm sewing today (the pillowcases, not my knee).

And then there is this pile of miscellaneous fabric. I found the penguin fabric while I was organizing the Christmas stuff in the attic. I'm hoping there's enough there to make a couple more pillowcases!

So, what about you? Any unfinished projects in your craft space? Care to share? If you post to your blog, please share your link with me so I can see. :)

Journal Your Christmas: Days 20, 21, and 22

Nope, that's not a typo up there- I am actually posting days 20-22 now, even though I have only previously posted days 1-4. Here's what happened- life. Yes, life happened. I got really busy with work and home and Christmas prep and missed a few (okay, a bunch) of my scrapping days. I took pictures and noted what I wanted to put on the pages, but they just didn't get assembled. When I finally got off work for Christmas holiday, I decided to pick up in the middle and scrap each prompt on the day it came and go back and fill in the rest as I have time. I've actually made up a bunch of pages since then, but since I already have these photographed, I'm starting here. I'll post the others as I have time.

If you want to see my previous JYC pages, look here and here. :)

Day 20 was to document the unexpected that has happened this Christmas season. Honestly, I had a hard time coming up with something for this one, but then I remembered the morning that Darren woke me up and had me look out the window because it had snowed. Now *that* is rather unexpected here in the south!

Day 21's assignment was to journal about what your current holiday preparations looked like and take photos of everything just as it was that day. I can safely post this now- before Christmas that pile of gifts waiting to be wrapped might have spoiled a few people's surprises!

I love that photo of the strand of beads that the cats had started to pull off the tree. That's so typical around here- they get into everything!

Day 22's journaling was my remaining to-do list. I thought it was blissfully short until I actually started wrapping the gifts. I spent 3 hours, and Darren worked with me for an hour and a half of that! They looked so pretty under the tree, though. :)

I've been loving the Starbucks paraphernalia that my fellow JYC classmates have been using in their albums, so I stuck a bit in mine, as well. So festive!

I'll post more pages as I complete them and get them photographed. I finished 5 more this morning! I think I will take tomorrow as a sewing day, though- I'm thoroughly enjoying my time off of work and it will be over all too soon.

Project 365 - 2010

After much consideration, though, and a little whining at myself, I have decided to do Project 365 again this year.

Yes, it was a pain to remember to take a photo every day (I have more "makeup" days than I'd care to admit).

Yes, it did take a lot of time to put the album together.

Yes, the photo printing was a little pricey!

I love my album now that it's almost finished, though, and at this point I can't imagine not doing it next year. I love that my entire year is captured in that one book. I love that I took pictures of so many things that I might not have otherwise recorded. And I love that my photography skills grew (only just a little bit) in this past year.

That is a page from my book, representing one week of this year. :)

I plan on using the same format as last year, mostly because I still have two packages of the page protectors and an extra album already in the scrap room. I'm going to do the journaling cards as straight 4x6 cards, this year, instead of assembling them from two 3x4 pieces (that took a TON of time!). I'll be making the "Week Of" cards using my massive stash of scraps that I really do need to go through. Hopefully I'll have some photos of it to share shortly after the first of the year.

If you plan on participating this year, but making your own kit is not your thing, you might check out one of these options:

Becky Higgins (who started this craze with scrapbookers last year when she released her Project 365 kit) is back with a brand new Project Life kit this year.

MemoryWorks is releasing their own line for the project in January. I'm totally digging the grungy graph paper look!

And, if you don't want to scrap the project at all, you might want to check out the Project 365 iPhone app. Just snap a photo a day with your iPhone and the app will help you organize and browse your photos. Too cool!

Merry Christmas!

Woohoo! Christmas bokeh!!

Friday Favorites - Merry Christmas!

I almost didn't do a Friday Favorites today since it's Christmas, but after seeing several cute Christmas ideas on blogs this week I just had to get them in- it's my last chance until next year!

I think that my absolute favorite for this week is this set of Star Wars themed Christmas ornaments from theForce.net. I'm going to have to make these next year!

Along the same theme, but without the sci-fi flavor are these beautiful terrarium ornaments from Design Sponge.

These paper teardrop ornaments look like they are super simple to make!

In the realm of just crafty stuff, Studio Calico posted an ATC tutorial on their blog. I'm planning on starting a daily card project (like Elise Blaha's here) next year, so any ATC tutorial is good with me!

And, finally, check out this super cool mini album from SEI. I like that it can be both an album and a decoration at the same time.

Pretty Papers, Pretty Ribbons (and some tags, too!)

The gift wraps, they has me! I seriously cannot get over how much gorgeous gift wrap there is out there. Since I've been knee-deep in my own gift wrapping since yesterday, this is just going to be a quick post to link to some of my favorite ideas from this week.

Wrapping

{decor8}

{oh, hello, friend}

{Martha Stewart}

{Write, Click, Scrapbook}

{Here's Looking at Me, Kid}

Gift Tags

{American Crafts}

{My Studio Pink}

{October Afternoon}

{Hambly Screen Prints}

Free Printables

{Scrap Scene}

Loads more free printables available at:

• Living Life as Art
• PaperCrave
• More from PaperCrave
• Even more from PaperCrave

Calendars

It's that time of year again!

Yes, it's time for me to choose a new calendar. I've been seeing a lot of them on blogs lately and wanted to share a list of some of my favorites here.

There are a lot of printable calendars available- some free and some not so free, and in all different formats.

Among the non-free calendars, this one from Paper Source is my favorite just for the stunning visuals.

There are several planner-style calendars on the list.

The Scrapbooker's All-in-One Memory Logbook has space for planning both your life and your scrapbook pages.

Creativity Prompt also has a great printable planner workshop.

For a free printable planner, check out Brenda Arnall's blog.

I think that this one is my favorite printable calendar. It has the perfect level of snarkiness, and it's only $5.

This matryoshka doll calendar is a free download.

And this cute little mini calendar is also a free download.

This free printable is also formatted to fit into a CD jewel case for easy viewing.

Check out the Scrapbook Inspirations site for another free calendar template.

And the last free printable monthly calendar on my list can be found here.

Making your own calendar from scratch is also an option. Prima showed this beautiful calendar on their blog a few weeks ago.

You can order this gorgeous calendar from Miriam Bereson, but if shipping from Australia is to high for you (for me it's more than the calendar), you could easily replicate it using your scrapbooking supplies.

Friday Favorites - More Gift Wrapping

This week I have been absolutely taken by all the gorgeous gift-wrapping photos being posted on blogs. Even blogs that are not normally given to paper crafts, like the wedding blog Style Me Pretty. They posted these gorgeous gift wraps earlier this week.

Wendy Sue Anderson shares a wonderful idea for recycling old Christmas cards into gift bags. I save all the cards I receive and put them in scrapbooks, but I have some odd cards laying around from years past when I've had leftovers after mailing them out. This would be a perfect use for them.

This nifty bow made from newpaper was posted on Paper Crave.

I think I literally drooled over all the gorgeous ideas posted at Rachie's Place. I wonder if I could find anything half as pretty if I would actually clean out my sewing stuff and get my spare ribbon together.

These pretty tags from House of 3 are on sale this week- the PDF download is just 50 cents! I dowloaded it and used our color laser printer to print several sets on kraft cardstock. They're designed to be used with a 2" circle punch, so they're super easy to cut out.

How about some scrappiness? Making Memories posted a tutorial detailing how to make this mini alum.

Ali Edwards has been posting pages from her December Daily album on her blog. She also highlighted some entries in the Flickr group here.

Isn't this mini perpetual calendar just too cute?!? It's from the winter issue of Scrapbook and Cards Today.

I love the bright colors in this mini album by Leslie Ashe!

Creating Keepsakes posted some great organizational tips on their blog. I used to use their suggestion of photographing embellishments and keeping the pictures in Picasa, but somewhere along the way I fell off of that. I may have to start again.

And, finally, a tip from Kathy Thompson on getting the "twinkling" effect on your Christmas light photos. Hint: you really have to have a tripod for this one. I NEED a tripod!

Off to shop for a tripod now...I've put it off long enough!